Once S Fred Singer debated Sherry Rowland about ozone depletion on NPR. Every atmospheric scientist I talked to was amused that Rowland had obviously crushed Singer. Non-scientists thought that Singer held up fairly well (he has – he is really old). There is the problem. Competent scientists know that Singer, Soon, Baliunas and Seitz were pedaling BS in their opposition to protecting the ozone layer. Reagan and Bush knew it and they were the ones that provided knowing leadership to the world concerning the Montreal Protocol. And the Protocol has worked. the abundance of ozone depleting substances has decreased and the decrease in global stratospheric ozone has been arrested. The ozone hole will go away in the future if the world stays at it.

Competent scientists know that Soon’s rants about climate are garbage….  What to say about the folks who choose to believe that Soon is a scientist and that his objections to climate science are significant? Put these people in a functional MRI and you find that the part of their brain that responds to his BS is the part that responds to cocaine. It is not the part that does algebra.

If you do associate with denialists, go have coffee with them and listen to them. I send them something from my course first. Like the First Law treatment of climate. Respect and renewables may rewire brains – rants won’t.

That’s the way it is.

–  “James Wilson” in the NYTimes comment section